Policy Issues

Mental Illness

There is no categorical ban on the execution of people with mental illness. A small number of states have laws that create an exemption for some seriously mentally ill defendants.

Resources on Severe Mental Illness and Death Penalty

Resources on Severe Mental Illness and Death Penalty

American Bar Association Death Penalty Due Process Review Project

DPIC Report: Battle Scars

DPIC Report: Battle Scars

Military Veterans and the Death Penalty (Features information on PTSD and other combat-related mental health problems)

Overview

The U.S. Supreme Court has said a defendant’s mental illness makes him or her less morally culpability and must be taken into consideration as an important reason to spare his or her life. However, as was initially the case with intellectual disability and young age, the Court has not barred the death penalty for those with serious mental illness. When the Court prohibited the death penalty for the intellectually disabled and for juveniles, it found that they were members of identifiable groups who have diminished responsibility for their actions and hence should not be considered the worst and most culpable defendants. Many mental health experts believe that people with severe mental illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may have similar cognitive impairments that interfere with their decision-making. The American Psychiatric Association and the American Bar Association, among others, have called for a ban on the death penalty for those with severe mental illness.

Some defendants are so mentally ill as to lack all understanding of their crime and its consequences and may be considered mentally incompetent. Such individuals may be unfit to stand trial or be found not guilty by reason of insanity. If they are convicted and become incompetent while on death row, they cannot be executed, under earlier Supreme Court precedent. However, most people with mental illness — including many with severe mental illness — are not mentally incompetent.

Mental health issues have broad impact in death-penalty cases. One in ten prisoners executed in the United States are “volunteers” — defendants or prisoners who have waived key trial or appeal rights to facilitate their execution. Mental illness also affects defendants’ decisions to represent themselves, their ability to work with counsel, and jury’s perceptions of their motives and whether they pose a future danger to society if they are sentenced to life in prison.

At Issue

There are at least three hurdles to excluding the severely mentally ill: 1. Unlike age and intellectual ability, it is difficult to define the class of mentally ill defendants who should be exempted and to determine whether their illness affected their judgment when they offended. 2. States have so far been reluctant to adopt such bans, though society continues to evolve in terms of its understanding of mental illness. 3. The membership of the Supreme Court has shifted since some of the earlier exemptions were decided. Nevertheless, the prior decisions could serve as important precedents, capable of being extended to the mentally ill.

What DPIC Offers

DPIC has tracked the various state legislative efforts to address the mental illness issue. It frequently highlights instances in which mentally ill defendants receive unfair death-penalty trials, face execution, or have been granted clemency or other relief. It also gathers statements from relevant leaders in the mental health field regarding this issue.

News & Developments


News

Sep 30, 2024

Rulings for Two Death-Sentenced Prisoners Recognize Devastating Harm Caused by Solitary Confinement

Scientists and oth­er experts are unan­i­mous in their con­clu­sion that indef­i­nite or pro­longed soli­tary con­fine­ment caus­es seri­ous harm, and the United Nations says it amounts to tor­ture — yet most death-sen­tenced peo­ple in America are con­fined to these extreme con­di­tions of iso­la­tion and depri­va­tion for years. As of 2020, a dozen states rou­tine­ly kept death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers in sin­gle cells for at least twen­ty-two hours a day with lit­tle-to-no human con­tact. Two recent devel­op­ments in capital…

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News

May 29, 2024

Recent Decisions in Capital Cases Reflect Growing Understanding of How Serious Mental Illness Affects Behavior and Culpability

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and the impact of men­tal ill­ness is keen­ly felt on death row: at least two in five peo­ple exe­cut­ed have a doc­u­ment­ed seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, and research sug­gests that many more death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers are undi­ag­nosed. A nation­al major­i­ty, 60% of Americans, oppos­es exe­cut­ing peo­ple with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. In the past two decades, sci­ence and med­i­cine have con­tributed to a much bet­ter under­stand­ing of how seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, which refers to…

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News

May 13, 2024

Oklahoma Judge Finds Wade Lay Mentally Incompetent to Be Executed

Oklahoma pris­on­er Wade Lay (pic­tured) will not be exe­cut­ed on June 6, 2024 as sched­uled because a Pittsburg County judge has found him men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. The avail­able evi­dence demon­strates, by a pre­pon­der­ance or greater weight of the evi­dence, that Mr. Lay is cur­rent­ly incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed accord­ing to the gov­ern­ing legal stan­dards,” Judge Tim Mills wrote. Defense and state experts who exam­ined Mr. Lay found that, due to his schiz­o­phre­nia, delu­sions, and para­noia, he…

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News

Apr 02, 2024

Following Stay of Execution, Oklahoma Court Finds Death-Sentenced Prisoner Incompetent to Be Executed Due to Serious Mental Illness

On March 28, Judge Michael Hogan of Pittsburg County ruled that James Ryder is incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed after a hear­ing where experts estab­lished Mr. Ryder’s seri­ous men­tal ill­ness. “[We are] relieved the court reached the only log­i­cal con­clu­sion… James has no ratio­nal under­stand­ing of why Oklahoma plans to exe­cute him,” said Mr. Ryder’s attor­ney, Emma Rolls, fol­low­ing the deci­sion. James has suf­fered from schiz­o­phre­nia for near­ly 40 years and has lit­tle con­nec­tion to objec­tive reality.”…

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